I don't normally use Win32, but I want to convert our 4AllTeX addicts to
TeX Live 2003. In testing release candidates, I encountered a few
problems with context and texexec. The most recent tests were with the
Sept. 5 release candidate (using the "install" CD).
1. on Win32, kpsewhich often fails to find texexec.ini. I created a
texexec.ini in texmf-var/context/config and verified that it is listed in
the ls-R. My conjecture is that this failure occurs if and only if the
final component of the nme of the current working directory contains an
embedded space, e.g., "C:\My Documents". Texexec takes a very long time
to run (searching the texmf trees on an unloved and unwanted PIII 300mhz),
so I haven't done a lot of testing/debugging. I haven't encountered any
other kpathsea failures. I can work around this by tweaking texexec.pl,
but it would be comforting to have an explanation.
2. ConTeXt texexec uses $ENV{"HOME"} to set a value in filename.tmp,
e.g., on unix:
$ cat try.tex
\starttext
\input story
\stoptext
$ texexec try
$ cat try.tmp
% try.top
\unprotect
\setupsystem[\c!gebied={/user/gwhite/}] %---- set from $ENV{"HOME"}
\setupsystem[\c!n=1]
\setupsystem[inputfile=try.tex]
\protect
If, e.g. HOME="/x y", the formatted document gets an extra page containing
"y//cont-err".
On Win32, it seems common to have spaces in "%HOME%". In particular, for
WinXP, a value appears to be constructed by the texexec.ini binary
(created using irun) if %HOME% is not set. I can work around this by
asking users to explicitly set HOME to something safe.
--
George White